Denying Colonial Violence and Redeeming Empire

There seems to be a resurgence of the idea of the British empire as a benign force for the good of humanity in popular writing, media, and, generally, in public discourse. This trend intersects with an academic project of redeeming empire from the clutches of postcolonial or poststructuralist theory. Along with echoes of the old argument about the empire being acquired haphazardly, the respect of early colonial administrators for Indian culture, and the innate religiosity (always depicted as prone to fanaticism) of Indians, there are some new twists in the resurgent historiography of empire.

Colonial historiography defined the value and benefit of empire in terms of its civilizing mission; in its ability to make Indians more like-- though never quite exactly the same as or equal to-- the British. Now, the claim is inverted: British colonial rulers and administrators were as Indian as Indians themselves, since they wore Indian dress, ate Indian food, and married Indian women.

This revisionist historiography denies the subjects of colonialism the right to their memories and histories, although this is done in the name of respecting the agency of Indians. (The 'agency' argument is easily answered by Marx's point in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon that men make their history but they do not always make it under circumstances of their own choosing). It also functions to silence and erase the fundamental character of colonial violence by reducing it to pure contingency, a knee-jerk reaction of inept administrators or the agenda of evangelical missionaries.

Violence against colonial subjects was inherent in colonialism from its inception. Colonialism itself was the violence. In its new avatar, whether in the field of South Asian historiography, the media productions of the BBC, or the domain of international relations, colonialism asserts itself by denying its own existence.